Future of Route 30 vital to Stark County

Sunday

Jan 5, 2014 at 12:01 AM

The Ohio Department of Transportation has a new transportation plan for the coming decade called Access Ohio 2040. In guest columns today, leaders of Stark County’s business community and the local transportation industry share their concerns about these proposed changes.

Editor’s note: The Ohio Department of Transportation has a new transportation plan for the coming decade called Access Ohio 2040. Repository readers can comment on the draft plan until Jan. 15.

The plan’s map does not give any importance to Route 30 east of Canton, and it downgrades Interstate 77 south of Canton to a highway of state importance, not national importance.

For more information about Access Ohio 2040, go to http://www.accessohio2040.com.

In guest columns today, leaders of Stark County’s business community and the local transportation industry share their concerns about these proposed changes.

What do you think?

If you believe these highways south and east of Canton are important to business, tell ODOT in an e-mail at access.ohio.2040@dot.state.oh.us.

And share your thoughts with other Rep readers in a letter to the editor or in a comment under this story.

TWO-LANE ROAD HINDERS IMPORTANT TIES BETWEEN STARK AND WESTERN PA.

By DENNIS P. SAUNIER and STEPHEN L. PAQUETTE

Ohio has created a map of important highways in the coming years. It does not even show Route 30 east of Canton. This concerns us. Route 30 improvement east of Canton is an opportunity unrealized.

We think that opportunity can be described in one word: Pittsburgh.

Furthermore, when you consider that you can travel a four-lane Route 30 from Canton to Chicago, an improved Route 30 to the eastern Ohio border is a job unfinished. And we imagine it will remain unfinished if it is not even recognized as a road on the map of Ohio’s highway future.

The map we speak of is part of the Ohio Department of Transportation’s new long-range plan, called “Access Ohio 2040.” As we said, Route 30 east of Canton does not even appear on the map.

Conclusion? No importance.

We also see that, though most Interstate highways in Ohio leading to and from the state’s major cities are ranked as “national highway corridors,” Interstate 77 south of Canton is designated merely as a “statewide highway corridor.”

That may be news to area manufacturers that ship to Southern U.S. states.

GROWING REGION

Let’s get back to Pittsburgh. We’re not referring to the Steelers, or even the Pirates or Penguins. We are referring to a metropolitan market that outpaced Toledo, Youngstown, Cleveland, Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati in recovery from the 2008 recession.

Pittsburgh posted a 6.8 percent increase in gross domestic product in the years 2009-2011, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis, in an April 2013 report.

Easier access to the Pittsburgh market means easier shipping of Stark County goods, produced by Stark County labor. It could mean greater opportunities for economic growth.

And then there is oil and gas.

Range Resources drilled the first horizontal well in the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania back in 2004. Vigorous development of the Marcellus has about a four-year head start on the development of the Utica, which we are experiencing in Ohio. Needless to say, oil and gas exploration companies and their supporting service companies have deep roots in Pennsylvania.

Talent and equipment flow back and forth between Ohio and the greater Pittsburgh area. And Route 30 east cuts across the northern Utica formation. Oil and gas development in Ohio and Pennsylvania will continue for many decades. An improved Route 30 would bring ease — and greater safety — to that development.

Unfortunately, Ohio often doesn’t have the money to improve highways as an investment in future potential. It tends to focus on problems that need to be fixed. But if Ohio wanted to exercise vision, here’s a thought: How about Ohio and Pennsylvania working together to improve Route 30 between Canton and Pittsburgh?

MILES MEAN MONEY

It takes about two hours to drive to Pittsburgh on any of three routes: Route 30, Route 62 to Interstate 76, and I-77 to I-76. The time is the same, but the mileage is quite different:

• Route 30 — about 93 miles

• Route 62 — about 102 miles

• I-77 — about 130 miles

Miles mean money for trucking companies. Everywhere you look, trucking is linked to jobs and economic opportunity. If you could travel Canton to Pittsburgh on a four-lane highway at 60 mph, instead of approximately 46 mph, the trip would take only about an hour and a half. Time is money, too.

Ohio transportation planners are smart when they pay attention to intermodal facilities, which link highways and rail systems or highways and rail and shipping systems. These cargo exchange hubs give job-creating businesses the options they need to ship goods.

But the Wellsville port on the Ohio River, near East Liverpool, is merely listed as a port, not an intermodal, on the Access Ohio 2040 map. The intermodal facility on Route 62 in Navarre does not appear on the map at all, even though it is growing in importance as a freight transfer point for oil and gas exploration.

We are worried about what we see and don’t see in the Access Ohio 2040 map and think that our fellow Repository readers should be worried, too. Transportation means jobs. We invite fellow readers to comment on Ohio Access 2040.

TIME, MILES MEAN MONEY TO COMPANIES THAT MOVE OIL, GAS, THEIR BYPRODUCTS

By DENNIS NASH and DOUG SIBILA

What’s the local transportation industry’s stake in a new Route 30?

The transportation industry and all local businesses have a tremendous stake in the new Route 30. By turning Route 30 East into a four-lane highway, we can secure the economic future of this great community by enhancing current commerce, attracting new businesses and jobs, supporting a growing energy market here in our own backyard, and ensuring safe travel on our roads today and in the future.

This project is extremely important to our economic well-being, and all local businesses and area residents should be focused on it.

Canton and Northeast Ohio have a long history of manufacturing success. We want to keep it that way. To do so, we have to improve the infrastructure that secured our manufacturing reputation over the years.

This infrastructure includes close proximity to highly populated cities, abundance of natural resources and the ability to transport raw materials in — and manufactured products out — to the marketplace. Our ability to use truck, rail, air and water is unique to most other parts of our country. Regardless, most last-mile transportation is completed by truck.

BETTER ACCESS

Canton is the only major manufacturing city in Ohio without a major highway connecting all four directions: north, south, east and west. Cleveland is the exception but has Lake Erie ports to support commerce and raw materials to and from the north.

By turning Route 30 east into a four-lane highway, we can open up the eastern corridor, giving us better access to a growing and successful marketplace in western Pennsylvania-Pittsburgh.

Distance is money in any transportation model. It’s all about efficiencies. Every mile can cost an average of $3.50. Many local companies today have a difficult time transporting their products to the Pittsburgh region because it requires their trucks to travel an additional 25 miles north or 25 miles south just to access a major highway.

With respect to the growing oil and gas business, Route 30 east becomes imperative to the success of these plays. Coincidentally, the Utica Shale capital is right here in Canton, and the Marcellus Shale is in Western Pennsylvania, corresponding directly with Route 30 east. Opening a four-lane highway between these two plays would enhance efficient transporting of materials back and forth, which takes place every day. Drilling materials are shipped in while raw materials and chemical byproducts are transported out from producing wells.

There is so much riding on the development of these shale formations, not only for our local economy but also for the future of our nation. The oil and gas produced are resulting in more energy independence for the United States and less dependency on foreign resources.

But these natural resources also translate into huge downstream manufacturing opportunities for our local community. Manufacturing relies on energy. The more affordable the energy, the more globally competitive our manufacturers will be.

BYPRODUCTS BUSINESSES

Numerous byproducts come from natural gas, such as methane, propane, butane, propylene and ethylene. These chemicals make up the products we use every day, from food and beverages to electronics, shampoos and pharmaceuticals. They are also heavily used in the plastics industry.

Fifty percent of all U.S. plastics are manufactured within 500 miles of Northeast, Ohio. Natural gas and its byproducts from the shale plays could lower manufacturing costs by approximately one-third. This would allow the United States to out-produce foreign plastics competitors in Europe, Japan and even China.

Can you imagine how the chemical and plastics industry would continue to grow in this area? The job opportunities and economic development would grow exponentially.

This is just one example of many, but we have to have the transportation infrastructure in place to make it all work.

And finally, our No. 1 priority in the transportation, warehousing and logistics industries is the safety and well-being of our employees, customers, the public and the environment. The quicker we can get trucks off the back roads and onto major highways, the less local congestion we generate on Main Street with the combination of trucks, school buses and cars.

With freight volumes expected to double in the next 10 to 15 years, how will we handle this increased volume safely? We need to act now.